gone zoom many kids are schooled on zoom
we learn to cook even play instruments
over zoom and most of us are even
getting hired on zoom but what about
being fired in that forum is it a sign
of the times or is it a vicious business
tactic form and former employees of
better.com say the latter after ceo
michelle garg dispensed with
900 of them in a three-minute call no
one saw coming
career i'm doing this and i do not do
not want to do this the last time i did
it i cried
um this time i hope to be stronger
but we are laying off about 15
of the company
if you're on this call
you are
part of the unlucky group being laid off
your employment here is terminated
effective immediately
wow with that the ceo of the nine
billion dollar mortgage company
he's now apologizing for his handling of
the situation christian chapman was one
of the 900 fired on that call he joins
us this morning good morning man
apologies for what you and your family
are going through here at the holidays
if you can and i know you've done this
before so apologies for making you do it
again take us through the emotions
before during and of course after that
call
sure sure david so um
you know early in the morning about
we were having a one-to-one call and
with my manager and we're talking about
a great review then i jump into a
training call i'm with all my trainers
and we're talking about christmas and
making christmas plans we're going to do
a zoom white elephant kind of gift style
and then we saw this message pop up and
we're like what is this are we supposed
to be on this and then there's a message
30 minutes later
that pop up on our calendar
we took a look at it
we decided to jump on it we're like okay
let's all end let's get on this call
it'll be in all hands i'm sure they're
talking about you know the 750 million
in liquidity that we just got and our
breath was just taken away um i heard
the words come out of the shawl's mouth
and as he was saying that
a million thoughts ran through my head
right away
the first was you know the first time i
did this i didn't cry the second time i
hoped to be stronger it was almost like
he was eliciting empathy for him for
having to lay us off and it was just
cold and callous and it was monotone and
it it wasn't the normal uh vashaw who's
you know just
kind of vulgar and full of f-bombs and
and it just wasn't his normal um self at
all and then i thought immediately the
lack of empathy that he was showing i
was like have we traded dollars for
empathy
and it just it sank my heart and
and then i'm thinking how do i tell my
wife and i've got five kids at home and
then i thought about the families across
the united states that are being
affected by this and will we have
christmas what will that look like it's
gonna be different and then you're
trying to get the courage to call your
wife and i'm sitting there trying to
communicate right after the call and i'm
telling you
mentally and emotionally it was dark but
physically it was dark because our
laptops shut down our email was gone our
skypes were gone like our slack was gone
that was the way that's my community
that's my family that's who i talk to
and i don't have any way to talk to him
and in this zoom age world i don't get
to leave my desk i don't get closure i
don't get to pack everything up say
goodbye to my friends and leave i'm
stuck just staring and i'm told there's
an email that's going to come and for
two excruciating hours almost three
nothing shows up i click refresh
i click refresh nothing's happening
nothing's showing up and i have to tell
my wife and she wants details and i
don't know if that's our last pay stub i
don't know
what we're gonna for christmas
so now the ceo michelle garg has
apologized and let me read what he said
i want to apologize for the way i
handled the layoffs last week i failed
to show the appropriate amount of
respect and appreciation for the
individuals who were affected and for
their contributions to better how does
that sit with you does it make any of
this feel better
i'm going to be really transparent i'm
going to say no i feel like this is more
pr uh because right after that message
um my friends reached out to me on
messenger and you know he was saying
that he load off he laid off you know
low producers he uh over the next two
days kind of bashed us and then as the
company started seeing shake-ups and
some of the execs are leaving all of a
sudden this email message or this you
know message comes out on better of you
know i'm sorry that's not the child's mo
it's not his style his style you know i
told multiple people in my training
classes if it's all speaking make sure
you're on mute make sure you have
headphones in you don't want little kids
coming in carrying those f-bombs in that
vulgarity
that's who he is he's off the cuff he's
going to send a text message to the
entire company about something
and so i feel like it's very pr driven
so i just want to be fully transparent i
was called cold and calculating and
vicious earlier this week when i said i
don't see any problem with firing people
over zoom because we are hired over zoom
and i think it is a bit of a sign of the
times do you have a problem with the
forum in which he did it or just how and
the lack of empathy
i think ultimately it's it's empathy
where where is it in our country it's
okay to cry when you lay a thousand
people off it's okay to feel bad about
that i do understand that we have
economics and you know but i feel like
this is you know capitalism almost gone
wrong in a way it can be done right and
i think the market's judging it right
now i think that's what's happening and
that's why we're seeing this pr i think
it's the form and the method and the way
that he did it when you on
when you're on slack every day with all
your co-workers from morning to night on
the weekends you're checking in you're
dropping family pictures it was a very
community family that's who you lean on
and for everything to go to remote and
dark 10 seconds after to not be able to
get phone numbers
you know to not have any closure it just
shut down and then we have no idea
what's going on i don't have a contact
hr i don't have a phone number to hr um
i
i don't have any way to contact them
it's i'm just left in the dark and i'm
left just staring at my computer that's
blank and my word desk and there's no
closure there and i think that's the
difference when you're when you're doing
a mass layoff on zoom and all that after
the company got 750 million dollar cash
infusion three weeks away from christmas
if there's good news there's more than
11 million open jobs in this country
we're in a labor shortage so you should
be in a good situation what's your
elevator pitch for rocket mortgage and
others who who might be out there hiring
this time of year
yeah absolutely i'll say this and i came
on with the company february 16th in
march i was the top five percent
underwriter in april i was um offered
the opportunity to interview for a
promotion in june i became a trainer um
i had wonderful trainings you can check
out my linkedin at christianchapman or
check out my youtube at christianchapman
and you'll see all the different people
that i talked to that i worked with uh
the comments that they had about me i
definitely know mortgage inside and out
i've been there for almost 20 years i
got a raise in october
for what i did and i'm also able to
cross-functionally train i did sales i
did content development we did rise
courses and really at this you know in
the season i want to be a go-giver and
not a go-getter and so i really want to
help people and uh and i'm hoping if i
help enough people get what they want at
the end of the day i'll get what i want
which is a a job a way to take care of
my family to pay the mortgage and pay
the bills whether it's your hard work or
your perspective man you will not be out
of work long christian chapman
appreciate you sharing your story with
us he's a former employee there at
better.com and a future employee we
think very soon
thanks christian